Laban's Views and Ideas of Effort

Rudolf Laban (1879-1953) was born in Austro-Hungary. Laban became interested in the relationship between the moving human form and the space which surrounds it. He was a dancer, a choreographer and a dance / movement scholar. Laban was the first person to develop community dance and he set out to reform the role of dance education, emphasizing his belief that dance should be made available to everyone. Laban believed that movement enables a man to recognize his physical potential and that movement also describes man. The expression and quality used in ones movement was acknowledged by Laban as Effort. The closest translation of Effort in German is "Antrieb." The definition of Effort is the outer manifestation of an inner impulse to move. Effort is also described as movement dynamic. Effort is divided into four different effort factors. Laban used these four factors to depict the way that individuals applied Effort. The four Effort factors are Space, Time, Weight, and Flow. Each of these Effort factors has two extremes which are called the Effort elements. The first of these Effort factors is Space. The factor of Space shows how a person 's movement is focused. The two elements of Space are direct and indirect. When using direct movement your focus is on a single point in space. Some examples of direct movement are trying to put your keys into a door to unlock it and how birds of prey get there food. It would be impossible to unlock your door if your hand was shaking everywhere. Also if the bird of prey wasn 't direct about finding and obtaining their food they would go hungry. Indirect space has a multi-focused. I find it difficult sometimes to be truly indirect with some of my movements. Some examples of indirect movement are scattering chicken feed for chickens and leaves in the wind. The way you would scatter the food to many chickens and the way the leaves would glide and be blown around in the wind would be indirect movement. The second Effort factor is

Cited: 1. Bodmer, Sir Walter. "Laban Guild for Movement and Dance." Http://www.labanguild.f9.co.uk/ - 5k